Irvin S. Cobb

Irvin S. Cobb
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876 – March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, editor and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky, who relocated to New York in 1904, living there for the remainder of his life. He wrote for the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, as the highest paid staff reporter in the United States.
Cobb also wrote more than 60 books and 300 short stories. Some of his works were adapted for silent movies. Several of his Judge Priest short stories were adapted in the 1930s for two feature films directed by John Ford.
Biography
Cobb was the second of four children born to Kentucky natives in Paducah, Kentucky. His maternal grandfather, Reuben Saunders, M.D., is credited with discovering in 1873 that injections of morphine-atropine were useful in treating cholera. Cobb was raised in Paducah, and the events and people of his childhood became the basis for much of his later works. Later in life, Cobb was nicknamed "Duke of Paducah."
Cobb was educated in public and private elementary schools, and then entered William A. Cade's Academy intending to pursue a law career. When Cobb was 16, his father became an alcoholic, after the death of his grandfather. Forced to quit school and find work, Cobb began his writing career.
Writing career
Cobb started in journalism with the Paducah Daily News at age seventeen, and became the nation's youngest managing news editor at age nineteen. He later worked at the Louisville Evening Post for a year and a half.
His anecdotal memoir-cum-autobiography, Exit Laughing, published in 1941, includes a firsthand account of the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel in 1900 and the trials of the killers. He wrote numerous series in periodicals, and also collaborated on dramatic productions.
After moving to New York in 1904, Cobb was hired by the Evening Sun. The publication sent him to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference. His dispatches from the negotiations, emphasizing the personalities involved (including President Theodore Roosevelt), were published across the country with the title "Making Peace at Portsmouth." They earned him a job offer from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. During the murder trial of Harry Kendall Thaw in 1907, Cobb coined the term "sob sister" to describe the women reporters who were covering the trial.
Cobb joined the staff of the magazine The Saturday Evening Post in 1911, and covered the Great War for the magazine. At the same time, he wrote a book about his experiences, published in 1915, titled Paths Of Glory. After a second visit to France to cover the Great War, Cobb publicized the achievements of the unit known as the Harlem Hellfighters, most notably, Croix de Guerre recipients Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts. His article "Young Black Joe," published on August 24, 1918, in The Saturday Evening Post and later republished in Cobb's book, The Glory of the Coming, highlighted the discipline and courage displayed by black American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War I. The three-page article and half-page photograph reached a national audience of more than two million readers, and was widely reprinted in the black press. In the midst of covering the 1920 Democratic Convention, Cobb received 1.5 votes on the 23rd Presidential ballot.
Hollywood
Several of Cobb's stories were adapted as silent movies. He also wrote the screen titles for other movies, including the Jackie Coogan movie, Peck's Bad Boy (1921). With the advent of sound, more of his stories were adapted for the screen, including The Woman Accused (1933), featuring young Cary Grant.
John Ford twice made movies based on Cobb's Judge Priest stories: Judge Priest (1934) featured Will Rogers in the title role. The Sun Shines Bright (1953) was based on his short stories "The Sun Shines Bright", "The Mob from Massac", and "The Lord Provides".
Cobb also had an acting career, acting in ten movies between 1932 and 1938. He won major roles in such movies as Pepper, Everybody's Old Man (1936), and Hawaii Calls (1938). He was also host of the 7th Academy Awards in 1935.
In 1919, Cobb was recruited by former U.S. Navy officer and lawyer Capt. W.H. Slayton to become chairman of the Authors and Artists Committee of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA). The Association based their opposition on the misuse of national government power over U.S. citizens. As chairman, Cobb helped extend coverage of their message through the media and artist networks. "If Prohibition is a noble experiment," he said in one, "then the San Francisco fire and the Galveston flood should be listed among the noble experiments of our national history." As part of his AAPA efforts he published the anti-Prohibition novel Red Likker. After the repeal of Prohibition, Frankfort Distilleries recruited him to compile a recipe book to remind consumers who were out of practice how to mix a good drink.
The cartoon The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos caricatures Cobb as "Irvin S. Frog".
Personal life
Cobb has been described as having a round shape, bushy eyebrows, full lips, and a triple chin, with a cigar always hanging from his mouth.
He married the former Laura Spencer Baker of Savannah, Georgia. Their daughter, Elisabeth Cobb (born 1902, died 1959), was also an author. She published the novel She Was a Lady and the nonfiction My Wayward Parent (1945), a book about her father. Her first husband was Frank Michler Chapman, Jr., son of the ornithologist Frank Michler Chapman.
Cobb's granddaughter was Buff Cobb, a television actress of the early 1950s. She married journalist Mike Wallace as his second wife.
Cobb was honored in 1915 with the march "The War Correspondent" by G. E. Holmes, published by the John Church Company.
Cobb was inducted into the Kentucky Writers' Hall of Fame on February 2, 2017.
When Cobb died in New York City in 1944, his body was sent to Paducah for cremation. His ashes were placed under a dogwood tree. The granite boulder marking his remains is inscribed "Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb 1876-1944 Back Home".
Cobb wrote a letter detailing his desired funeral arrangements. The document reads in part:
Above all I want no long faces and no show of grief at the burying ground. Kindly observe the final wishes of the undersigned and avoid reading the so-called Christian burial service which, in view of the language employed in it, I regard as one of the most cruel and paganish things inherited by our forebears from our remote pagan ancestors. In deference to the faith of our dear mother who was through her lifetime a loyal though never bigoted communicant of that congregation, perhaps the current pastor of the First Presbyterian Church would consent to read the Twenty-third Psalm, which was her favorite passage in the Scriptures and is mine since it contains no charnel words, no morbid mouthings about corruption and decay and, being mercifully without creed or dogma, carries no threat of eternal hell-fire for those parties we do not like, no direct promise of a heaven which, if one may judge by the people who are surest of going there, must be a powerfully dull place, populated to a considerable and uncomfortable degree by prigs, time-servers and unpleasantly aggressive individuals. Hell may have a worse climate but undoubtedly the company is sprightlier. The Catholics, with their genius for stage-management, handle this detail better. The officiating clergyman speaks in Latin and the parishioners, being unacquainted with that language are impressed by the majesty of the rolling, sonorous periods without being shocked by distressing allusions and harrowing references.
Legacy and honors
The World War II Liberty Ship was named in his honor.
Following the Second World War, the Illinois Central Railroad named a passenger train operating between Louisville and Memphis, via Cobb's hometown, Paducah, the Irvin S. Cobb. The train carried timetable numbers 103 southbound and 104 northbound and made a direct connection at Fulton with trains to and from New Orleans.
Fiction
Cobb wrote humorous stories set in Kentucky, and he is considered part of the American literary regionalism school. These stories were first collected in the book Old Judge Priest (1915), whose title character was based on a prominent West Kentucky judge named William Pitman Bishop. Joel Chandler Harris wrote of these tales, "Cobb created a South peopled with honorable citizens, charming eccentrics, and loyal, subservient blacks, but at their best the Judge Priest stories are dramatic and compelling, using a wealth of precisely rendered detail to evoke a powerful mood." Among Cobb's other books are the humorous Speaking of Operations (1916), and an anti-prohibition ode to bourbon, Red Likker (1929).
Cobb also wrote short stories in the horror genre, such as "Fishhead" (1911) and "The Unbroken Chain" (1923). "Fishhead" has been cited as an inspiration for H. P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while "The Unbroken Chain" was a model for Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls". The former was described by Lovecraft as "banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake" in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature.
Bibliography
"A Little Town Called Montignies St. Christophe" – 1907 story
Funabashi – 1907 musical comedy
Mr. Busybody – 1908 musical comedy
Talks with the Fat Chauffeur – 1909 collection
"The Escape of Mr. Trimm" – 1910 story
"The Exit of Anse Dugmore" – 1911 story
Cobb's Anatomy – 1912 book
"Words and Music" – 1912 story
Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His People – 1912 collection
The Escape of Mr. Trimm: His Plight and Other Plights – 1913 collection
Cobb's Bill of Fare – 1913 book
"Fishhead" – 1913 story
Roughing It De Luxe – 1913 book
Europe Revised – 1914 book
Irvin Cobb at his Best – 1915 collection
Back Home - 1912, produced as a comedy, 1915
Paths of Glory: Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front (expanded as The Red Glutton) – 1915 book
Speaking of Operations – 1915 book
Old Judge Priest – 1916 collected stories
Fibble, D.D. – 1916 collection
Local Color – 1916 collection
Speaking of Prussians – 1917 book
"The Lost Tribes of the Irish in the South" – 1917 booklet
Those Times and These – 1917 collection
"The Great Auk" – 1917 story
The Thunders of Silence – 1918 book
"Boys Will be Boys" – 1918 story
The Glory of the Coming: What Mine Eyes Have Seen of Americans in Action in This Year of Grace and Allied Endeavor – 1919 book
Eating in Two or Three Languages – 1919 book
The Life of the Party – 1919 book
The Works of Irvin S. Cobb (14 volumes) – 1912-20 collections
From Place to Place – 1920 collection
Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are! – published in one volume with Isn't That Just Like a Man! by Mary Roberts Rinehart – 1920 book
The Abandoned Farmers – 1920 collection
A Plea for Old Cap Collier – 1921 book
"Darkness" – 1921 story
A Bull Called Emily – 1921 story
One Third Off – 1921 book
Sundry Accounts – 1922 collection
J. Poindexter, Colored – 1922 book
Myself to Date – 1923 book (Stickfuls: Compositions of a Newspaper Minion)
A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: His Favorite Stories as Told by Irvin S. Cobb – 1923 collection
Snake Doctor and Other Stories – 1923 collection
"The Snake Doctor" – 1923 story
One Block from Fifth Avenue – 1923 story
Goin' on Fourteen: Being Cross-sections Out of a Year in the Life of an Average Boy – 1924 book
Indiana: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
Kansas: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
Kentucky: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
Maine: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
New York: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
"The Chocolate Hyena" – 1924 story
North Carolina: Cobb's America Guyed Books – 1924 book
Alias Ben Alibi – 1925 book
Many Laughs for Many Days: Another Year's Supply of His Favorite Stories as Told by Irvin S. Cobb – 1925 collection
"Here Comes the Bride" –, and So Forth – 1925 book
On an Island That Cost $24.00 – 1926 book
Prose and Cons – 1926 book
Some United States: A Series of Stops in Various Part of This Nation with One Excursion Across the Line – 1926 book
All Aboard: A Saga of the Romantic River – 1927 book
Ladies and Gentlemen – 1927 book
Chivalry Peak – 1927 book
"This Man's World" – 1929 story
Red Likker – 1929 book
This Man's World – 1929 collection
"At the Feet of the Enemy" – 1929 story
Both Sides of the Street – 1930 collection
To Be Taken Before Sailing – 1930 book
The Belled Buzzard – 1930 story
Three Wise Men on the East Side – 1930 story
Incredible Truth – 1931 collection
Down Yonder with Judge Priest and Irvin S. Cobb – 1932 collection
"A Colonel of Kentucky" – 1932 story
Murder Day by Day – 1933 book
One Way to Stop a Panic – 1933 book
"Who's Who" Plus "Here's How!" – 1934 book
"Faith, Hope, and Charity" – 1934 story
Faith, Hope, and Charity – 1934 collection
Irvin S. Cobb's Own Recipe Book – 1936 book
Judge Priest Turns Detective – 1936 book
Azam: The Story of An Arabian Colt and His Friends – 1937 children's book
Four Useful Pups – 1940 children's book
Favorite Humorous Stories of Irvin S. Cobb – 1940 collection
Exit Laughing – 1941 book
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah – 1941 book
Roll Call – 1942 collection
Cobb's Cavalcade – 1944 collection
The Governors of Kentucky – 1947 book
Piano Jim and the Impotent Pumpkin Vine – 1950 book
Filmography
Fields of Honor (1918)
The Woman Accused (1933), featuring a young Cary Grant
Judge Priest (1934) starring Will Rogers
The Sun Shines Bright (1953)
Notes
References
External links
"Irvin S. Cobb" by Kelly Walters, KYLIT
"In Aachen and Fort Loncin", from Paths of Glory, by Irvin S. Cobb; illustrated
"www.IrvinSCobb.com - Tribute to the Life and Works of Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb" website in progress as of 07/01/2008 by Remington Guy
1876 births
1944 deaths
American male writers
Hal Roach Studios short film series
O. Henry Award winners
People from Paducah, Kentucky
Writers from Kentucky
Writers of American Southern literature